Red, our Land Rover, is back on the road!

It is with some relief that we can say that Red, our Land Rover, is now back on the road, complete with a fresh MOT issued on Saturday 30th May.

Red had been undergoing an engine rebuild that actually started back in October 2013. The 2.25L engine needed a bit of work before it would have been ready to take on the journey to Beijing. Alex picked up Red late on Friday night. An MOT was booked in for 3pm on Saturday, so there wasn't much time for an inspection and any maintenance on Red, but an early start Saturday morning revealed a number of holes that need to be welded up.

Moss, of Team Desert Bunnies, along with Alex, undertook a number of repairs including the much needed welding.

Moss of the Desert Bunnies welding Red

Red then went in for the MOT on Saturday at 3pm and came out with only one advisory on a tyre that is due to be replaced ahead of our launch on the 21st June.

Red going through the MOT

The work on Red continued after the MOT with some military spec bonnet catches with custom Moss made fitting kit amongst other things being fitted.

There is still more work required before Red will be ready for the rally. Two new tyres, a new alternator, brake repairs, engine service (after it has been driven around a bit) are just a few of things outstanding on Red but this has certainly been a much needed result with less than 3 weeks till the launch!

Route update for Beijing Rally

We have been following events in the Ukraine carefully, hoping that a change of route won't be required, but we've now decided that the recent escalation in the Ukraine will make our current planned route somewhat of a risk.

Ukraine is a sizeable place, avoiding it is not really a case of driving 100 miles around it. The two options are either go south of the Ukraine, which also means south of the Black Sea unless we figure out how to make our car amphibious. We would have to drive through Turkey, which we would have loved to do, but the additional mileage means London to Beijing will almost certainly take more than 28 days.

The second option is to go north of the Ukraine and drive through Belarus. The Belarus route won't have a huge impact on our mileage, so we have opted to go via Belarus instead of the Ukraine. This does mean yet another visa for us to obtain. Something we're now working on.

A recap on our visa situation. We have visas for Kazakhstan and Russia. Our Chinese and Mongolian visas are currently being processed, once we get those, Belarus will be the last visa we need.

Below is a map of our newly revised route.

We're now 40 days away from the Beijing Rally 2014 launch! Things are very busy at Rusty Rhinos HQ with visas to sort out, an engine to install into Red and GPS tracking to be set-up.

Russian visa arrival marks half way point for our visa collection

Having received our Kazakhstan visas a few weeks ago, we were really pleased to have received our Russia visas on Thursday. We now have the Mongolian and Chinese visas to get next, but as they have a 90 day limit on them from when they are issued we will have to hold off applying for these.

We needed a double entry visa for Russia which we got. We applied for the visas using the services of The Visa Machine. The team at The Visa Machine even gave us a 20% discount in support of our charitable adventure.

This marks another positive step for us. The amount of planning for this rally has been epic and there is still much to do!

Our route back from China

The plan is to get from London to Beijing in 28 days, but what next? Well we've had to rule driving back from China to the UK on the basis that we do have day jobs when we are not on a rally, so we're flying back.

Today we purchased our tickets back from China to the UK which we see as further progress on what seems like an endless list of things to finalise before the 21st June. The only other time we've had to use an aeroplane on a rally is when we returned from the Mongol Rally 2007. We did consider just pitching up at an airport in China and talking our way onto a flight, but our experience of doing that in Mongolia tells us that that might not be the best plan!

Preliminary 28 day route schedule

We've been putting a bit of thought into how one gets from London to Beijing in 28 days in a car that doesn't do much more than 50mph. We're not even sure why we picked 28 days other than it is 4 weeks, perhaps we should have picked 30! So, after a few hours of staring at Google maps and paper maps, we decided to put some realistic targets, if not a bit aggressive, of where we should be in order to make it from London to Beijing in 28 days.

Day 1: We set off from London for an epic drive that doesn't include any sleep time

Day 3: Ukraine - We're expecting to be somewhere around Uman

Day 5: Russia - After some rest on day 3 in the Ukraine, some more night driving should see us get close to Volgograd, a place that has left its mark on us from the Mongol Rally 2007

Day 7: Kazakhstan - We should now have crossed into Kazakhstan to start our long off road stretch. This section is going to take a while. Regular camping in the desert and being completely self sufficient will be our way of life

Day 16: Kazakhstan/Russia - After just over a week of awesome off road, we expect we'll be leaving Kazakhstan and entering Russia

Day 18: Mongolia - A couple of days of driving in Russia with limited sleep should mean we'll reach Mongolia. The Mongolia routine will be similar to Kazakhstan, camping and off-roading on a daily basis

Day 24: Mongolia - Ulanbataar - We might choose to have a rest night in Ulanbataar and take in the Mongolian capital, it will have been 7 years since we were here last

Day 25: Mongolia - China border - We start our border crossing into China

Day 26 - Day 27: Reserved for China border crossing process

Day 28: Beijing!

Kazakhstan visa has arrived

We've been quiet over the last month but things have been far from quiet for us. We have a minimum of four visas that must be obtained before we depart on the 21st June: Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and China.
We'll be applying for them in that order. We sent off for the Kazakhstan visa about 12 days ago and despite the challenges associated with a Kazakhstan visa when entering overland, we received our visa today!

The process wasn't too bad, although we did have to produce a fair amount of documentation.

This Kazakhstan visa is our first Beijing Rally related document, it finally feels like progress is being made! More news to follow soon on how we'll be handling the situation in the Ukraine.

Behind the scenes

The last few weeks have been busy for the us. A number of plans and preparations have started behind the scenes, although nothing is quite ready or complete yet. Less than 5 months to departure sounds like a long time, but with no car, no visas, no Chinese permits and the tracking system not yet refitted in Red, we certainly have to accelerate things a bit.

On the car front, we mentioned in September 2013 that Red had gone to Usher Engineering (Motorsport) for inspection and maintenance. Since the head was refurbished, a further engine inspection revealed that Red's engine was in no state to take on a 10,000 mile rally, so as of January 2014, an engine rebuild has begun. That is still very much in progress at the moment. We still have the suspension to work on after the engine is rebuilt as well as putting in a refurbished steering box.

On the permits and visas, we have an extensive amount of work. We need visas for 4 countries, China, Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Entry to China will also require a number of vehicle and driving license permits. We've finally selected an agency to work with in China to support us obtain the permits. We're hoping to get further progress on the documentation and permits towards the end of February. We're also anticipating Kazakhstan to be the first visa we apply for, probably sometime in February.

We have been working with Mercy Corps on selecting an appropriate way to finish our 10,000 mile and 28 day rally. There are some ideas currently being worked on, as soon as we have more details, we'll share these with you.